I don't know if I've said it before, but Sonya is a the most scared, of all the scaredy-cat kids, in all the land. This makes Halloween a very bitter sweet holiday for her. She loves to get dressed up and get candy, but isn't too fond of all the creepy and scary decorations on people's houses. We, in fact, have a decoration we get out every year she absolutely fears to death. It's called Jabber Jaw. It's a skeleton head that you talk to and it repeats what you say, while it's jaw moves, in a really creepy voice. Every year when we get it out she wants us to put it as far away as possible. This year before I got the decorations out she talked about Jabber Jaw and how she wasn't afraid of it. She was going to talk to it and hold it. She couldn't WAIT to get out Jabber Jaw!! Then Jabber Jaw came out of the Halloween box and she froze like a deer in headlights and started to cry. I'm not kidding. Cried and begged me to put it away. So once again Jabber Jaw got put up on a high shelf. Although we did discovered, he serves a good purpose. Anytime she started misbehaving we threatened to get Jabber Jaw. NOT JABBER JAW!!! Ahhh, antagonizing your children...sometimes it's so much fun to be a parent.
The biggest problem with her being so afraid of silly things, is that she's starting to influence Lana. Who knows if Lana would have been as afraid of Jabber Jaw, if she was the firstborn. She looks to Sonya to lead the way, so she was very afraid too. Luckily, G is still too little to be led so she could have cared less about it.
On Halloween night we went trick or treating with Sonya's friend Liza and her little sister. (Sonya went as a witch, Lana as Minnie and Georgia as a duck and they were damn cute, I must say.) Liza does not scare as easily, and was willing to ring any doorbell for candy no matter how dark or creepy the decorations looked. She coaxed Sonya to go with her to most of the scary houses. If not for her I think Sonya would have been eating the candy we handed out at home. It didn't matter what kind of candy was promised at a house, if it looked scary she was out. Fortunately, thanks to Liza, she managed to get a good haul. NOT that we really NEEDED anymore junk in our cupboard, but still.
After about 25 minutes we went home, because Liza and her family needed to leave, and Sonya and Lana were ready to be done with potential scariness. After I put Georgia to bed, I convinced them to go back out to a couple more houses. Andy and I took them, while my in-laws stayed and passed out candy. We didn't end up going far because, once again, the houses that looked kind of scary, Sonya refused to go near. Now that Liza wasn't around to protect her, she REALLY wouldn't go.
We were almost back home when we stopped at one last, non-scary house. The girls walked up to get their candy and I turned around to face two teenage boys in very creepy looking masks. As soon as I saw them I knew the girls weren't going to like them. I looked back to see how they were going to react. They thanked the nice lady for their candy, then they both turned around and stared at the boys in front of them. Their eyes got wide and they both looked nervous. Then Lana, without taking her eyes off them said,
"yikes."
Just like that. Not loud or upset, just a very subdued, calm but scared "yikes". Then she grabbed Andy and said,
"Daddy pick up, peese."
Andy and I laughed, and he picked her up. I grabbed Sonya's hand to lead her away from the creepy looking masked boys. We went back to our house where they were very content to pass out/eat lots of candy for the rest of the night. Overall, they had fun despite being frightened, and we always have a great time watching them.
I'm sure as Sonya gets older she'll start to overcome some of her fears of Halloween decorations. I can't say she doesn't come by it naturally. I've always been a bit on the scared side myself. I remember many a Halloween where I refused one particular house in the neighborhood. They had black lights and spooky music coming from the front door. That's all I needed to not go. Even now I can't handle a lot of scary movies, especially zombie ones. I can't even imagine how tormented I would have been by MY father, if Jabber Jaw would have been in our family. Maybe next year Sonya will successfully convince herself that she's not afraid of it. Then she can take part in the fun of scaring her little sisters instead.
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